Welcome to the Inquisition
by waiting4morning
Summary: Shorts, one shots, and drabbles based on the third game in the Dragon Age series: Inquisition. Spoilerphobes beware! (Until the game comes out, I'll only be working from officially released content. No leaks.)
1. Hazy

Well I knew I probably wouldn't be able to resist writing something before the game came out.

This story is spoilery for the gameplay trailer!

Inspired by the iPod shuffle challenge, except with Pandora. Today's song, _Hazy_ by Rosi Golan

* * *

The rip looked wrong—_felt_ wrong. Lieutenant Gould squeezed the hilt of his sword for its comforting solidness. What were they going to do? He'd been tasked with guarding the outside of the building where important work was going on. The Chantry and the mages of the rebellion had finally met to discuss peace. Now... now this _thing_ had happened.

He was a soldier, dammit, not some lyrium-addled templar. What was he going to against demons and mages? That rip was like nothing he'd ever seen before. He knew about the Fade of course; all people went there to dream, but no one—except mages maybe—thought about it while awake. But there it was, rippling like a heat hallucination. Except it wasn't a hallucination. Gould had been tasked with watching it while his squad looked around for survivors.

All they'd found so far were bodies of those from the Chantry and mages both.

Mages. Gould inhaled slowly through his helmet. What if this wasn't an accident; what if the mages had come here with only the show of talking peacefully and then had killed everyone?

But... wait, they'd found plenty of mage bodies. Were they so lost that they would kill themselves in order to get at the Chantry?

"Lieutenant!"

Gould turned his eyes from the wavering Fade for a moment. Commander Carson was running up to him.

"Any activity at your post?" she demanded as soon as she was within speaking range.

"None, ma'am," he replied. "If there were any survivors, they haven't come this way. I don't like the look of that rip, though. Demons liable to come pouring out any minute."

She nodded. "We'll have reinforcements soon. Messenger bird just arrived. Seekers."

Gould exhaled in relief. "That's something then. Maybe we should—"

Carson went stiff, hand whipping to her sword. Gould whirled.

"Maker's breath..."

Something was moving in the rip. For a moment, the image seemed hazy as if the figure had paused for a moment on the threshold, then an armored leg stepped through from the Fade into the real world. It was a person, not a demon, and they were armored as if for war...

The figure took one look at the two soldiers watching them, then collapsed onto the rubble of the courtyard.


	2. Prompt: Make me your memory

The Dragon Age Livejournal community has started up it's prompt fest again, so inspiration has struck!

This story is going off a little pet theory I have about the Inquisitor. I kind of hope it's not true, but I couldn't get the idea out of my head. Needless to say, spoilers!

Prompt: Make me your memory

* * *

Elanor stared at the family tree. The House of Trevelyan had a long and noble history. She had two parents, still living, and two brothers and a sister.

She wished she could remember them.

The mark on her hand pulsed and she flexed her fingers, instinctively repressing the surge of power that sang within her. Was this how mages felt? Constantly assaulted by urges and abilities that threatened to break free?

Vivienne hadn't been much help. Despite her background as First Enchanter, Elanor's strange ability was beyond anything she'd ever heard about. Solas alone seemed unperturbed by it. He was intrigued enough to do what research he could. It was this research in a musty library that he'd found the family tree., completely by accident

Elanor traced the spidery lines of the parchment again. down to her name: _Elanor_.

How had she known her name when she woke up from the cataclysm that tore the Veil? It was the only thing she remembered; the only piece of herself that she still had.

"You look troubled," said a voice above her. Elanor looked up to see Cullen settle into a chair across from her camp table. She smiled, pleased to see him. Cullen alone out of her companions didn't treat her like some sort of strange creature of the Fade. The others respected her, of course, and some even liked her, but Cullen was... well, he seemed to understand that Fade mark or no, she still buckled her boots just like everyone else.

"Just looking at the family tree again," she admitted, putting the parchment down. "I should stop. With all the chaos going on, worrying about my lost memories should be the last thing on my mind."

Cullen shrugged. "Our past is part of who we are. It's natural that you'd want to reclaim it."

Elanor's eyes fell again to the parchment. "I just wish I had something more to go on." She pointed at a smudged line. "See this here? I might have an aunt, but as far as my memories are concerned, I have no one. Nothing." She swallowed. "I'm a complete non entity with nothing to anchor to."

Cullen's hand slid across the table and covered her own. "Elanor."

She looked up at the use of her given name and sucked in a breath, realizing how close they were sitting.

"I... I have hesitated to speak," he said, fumbling a bit over his words, "but I cannot... even in my stupidity I cannot have been mistaken in your... your affection, can I?"

"Cullen..." she whispered, eyes wide. He squeezed her hand, smiling, his expression tender.

"Elanor... make me your anchor; your memory. When you feel yourself falling into the void of your past, I would like it if you would think of me instead. I cannot be your past, perhaps. But I would like to be... your future." His cheeks were stained pink and he swallowed hard. "I do not speak out of turn, I hope?" His eyes searched hers.

Elanor brought up her hand that was holding his, and gently kissed his sword-calloused fingers. He made a strangled sound in his throat.

"No," she said with a slow smile. "You do not."


	3. Prompt: Blue skies

**Prompt: Blue skies**

Seeing as we know next to nothing what the backgrounds for the various inquisitors are, I couldn't help but wonder what the background for a qunari inquisitor would be like, especially since all we know is that he or she is Tal-Vashoth. Technically, the inquisitor in this drabble only makes a cameo appearance. So is this a spoiler? Not really, since it's all made-up headcanon happening way before the game, but here's a warning anyway.

* * *

The hold of the ship is dark and damp. She-Who-No-Longer-Is curls up on the driest bit of blanket she manage while the ship rocks and quakes beneath her, threatening the residence of the last meal she ate. Pinching the tender skin under her bicep makes the nausea fade into the background of pain. She can't afford to lose the food she ate. It is needed for a task greater than herself.

A fluttering of movement. She presses her hand to her slightly swollen abdomen, urging the little one to take sustenance, to grow, to live, to _be_...

And what would the child be in this land of people who did not have a place? She-Who-No-Longer-Is closes her eyes in momentary concentration. It is still hard to shift aside the ways of thought so ingrained into her as if written on her bones. She reminds herself with an effort that this child may be Sten, or Farmer, or Craftsman, or something else entirely. The child would be free to choose. _And that is... good. Different, but different can be good.  
_  
A few others share the hold with her. Most of them are _bas_, but She-Who-No-Longer-Is scans each of them again as she did when first entering the hold. The Ben-Hassrath had been known to track down Vashoth using viddathari. It was easy to dismiss the squat peoples of the southern lands, but any escapee from the Qun did so at their own peril.

Again, however, her scrutiny revealed that her fellow passengers were nothing more than they seemed to be at the beginning of this cursed journey: a thin elf of indeterminate gender with slave tattoos badly hidden under burn scars, a dark-skinned human clutching a bag to her chest, and an old dwarf mumbling to himself.

She-Who-No-Longer-Is yearns for a breath of fresh air, not this fetid stench that they'd been breathing for days now. But did she dare risk showing her horns on deck, easily visible to anyone following that might see? _Patience_, she repeats to herself, rubbing her sloshing belly. _I was Blacksmith once. I can wait a little longer for the steel to temper._

Suddenly, she stiffens, hearing something besides the ever-present hiss of the sea and the dim shouts of the sailors above: the shrill, clear cry of a gull. She is standing on shaking legs—slightly bent because she is too tall to stand upright in the hold—and is at the bottom of the stairs that lead to the deck before she is even aware of moving.

The others watch her with dazed expressions.

She waits.

After what seem like hours, a crack of light expands into a blaze of glorious, searing warmth. She-Who-No-Longer-Is throws an arm over her eyes, hissing with pain. The bas all scuttle away from the shaft of sunlight like rats, crying out as the light burns eyes too long used to the dark.

"We're arrived," said a voice from above.

She-Who-No-Longer-Is waits until she can open her eyes without pain and climbs the wooden stairs, one hand on her stomach as if hold the child in place more than her own body could. Behind her is the sea, gray and merciless like the Arishok himself. Resolutely, she turns her back on the sea, and looks instead to the land she has chosen as her home. Her eyes are still watering, so it seems no more than a smudge of brown and green. Brown and pink blobs scurry around on the pier, becoming sailors and dockworkers once her eyes clear.

Above are blue skies stretching far and wide. White clouds skid along the horizon, remainders of the rain that plagued their journey yesterday. But that is the past. The blue is the future.

"Guess you're officially Tal-Vashoth, now, huh?" said the former elf slave coming out of the hold to stand beside her. She glanced down, noting with mild surprise the low, masculine voice that came from the spindly little body.

"No," she said, after a moment, "my name..." She swallowed, the enormity of the choice suddenly looming over her. The child within fluttered again, giving her courage. She breathed out, glancing up as she did so. "My name is Sky."


End file.
